By highlighting the most crucial concepts and the most important steps for improving your sender reputation, we’ll show you how to rise above the standards for email spam filters to get your email delivered to the inbox.

Making Sure Your Emails Get Delivered Is a Constant Battle

Getting your newsletter, digital products or even simple notifications delivered to your customers via email is a critical part of your business, but actually getting those emails into your customers’ inboxes can be an uphill battle.

It’s painful when your emails land in your clients’ spam folders instead of their inboxes. The big ISPs (Internet Service Providers) like Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail are cracking down on spam-like behavior like never before. A downside to this is that, in some cases, legitimate businesses can get caught in the crossfire between spammers and spam filters.

You might even be struggling to clean up your business’s reputation if you’ve already run into some challenges with delivery. Having your IP address blacklisted by email service providers is a frustrating problem and, if you’re not fluent in email delivery terminology and tactics, it can feel impossible to reverse. How are you supposed to send your list the emails they opted in for if you’re being flagged as a spammer?

Maybe your email is actually being delivered every time, but then no one is opening your messages. You change the subject line, but that doesn’t work. The frustration builds and finally you give up and decide it must be impossible to get mail delivered to the inbox tab rather than the promotions tab.

It’s Not Just You. Everyone Is in the Fight to Get Into the Inbox.

All entrepreneurs go through this at one point or another in the lifecycle of their business. ReturnPath reported that even if you follow proper protocol, you may only see an average of 88% delivery rate to the recipient’s email address. This doesn’t even include whether or not it reaches the inbox – just whether it is delivered successfully.

Why are email delivery problems so common? It’s because the email delivery world is constantly changing. Since the first spam email was sent in 1978, individuals and email companies alike have had to evolve their tactics to combat ever-increasing amounts of spam. What was acceptable one year may not be acceptable the next. This leads to lots of outdated information floating around the web about getting your email safely in the inbox of your contacts. Keeping up with all the updates, like blacklists, reputation management, sender authentication and what works best any given year, can be tedious for those who want to send email the right way. How on earth are you supposed to know which laws apply in other countries, like CASL in Canada, or how to check your IP reputation?

Using a sample size of over 357 million emails, ReturnPath says it best: “Spam tactics continue to evolve, and mailbox providers are forced to constantly refine their filtering technology to keep unwanted mail out of the inbox. In this ever-changing landscape, even the best senders struggle … with one out of every five emails failing to land in the inbox, brands are missing out on a full 20% of their opportunities.” This is, of course, if you do nothing or don’t know about the best practices involved to begin with.

Is There Something Out There That Can Make My Life Easier?

You can’t possibly know what you don’t know, so that’s where we step in. With over a decade of experience sending billions of emails on behalf of our users, we’ve come up with a comprehensive worksheet to guide you over this hurdle. By highlighting the most crucial concepts and the most important steps for improving your sender reputation, we’ll show you how to rise above the standards for email spam filters to get your email delivered to the inbox.

Think We’re Exaggerating? The Data Speaks for Itself:

By simply using the tools on our The Email Delivery Checklist, you can begin to actively work on building the trust and reputation you need to deliver your emails. By focusing on building trust with your list and establishing a solid sender reputation for your IP, you can get your email delivery rates as high as 98%. You’ll find everything you need to get started on our worksheet.

Still Not Convinced?

Getting more people to trust you based on your reputation will increase not only your open rate, but also your click rate — which is the longest-lasting email marketing boost you can give your business, period. With this checklist, you’ll get the knowledge necessary to achieve this goal with:

Email content tips so your contacts WANT to open your email, which means a bigger and more engaged audience will see your offer and be enticed to buy

Email formatting advice so your emails look great — a key to more clicks and opens, which is the only way to get more sales

IP reputation guidelines to ensure your emails reach the inbox so you’re not drowning in requests from customers or leads wondering where their download is

Types of emails to send and what to include to keep your customers informed throughout their journey and improve your brand’s trust factor

Segmentation tips that will reduce the chances of your emails being marked as spam so that your reputation and mailing capability stays spotless

If you’re done being frustrated with your email delivery performance and want to find out what you can do, check out the The Email Delivery Checklist to start improving your inbox placement now.

About Ben Cogburn

As ONTRAPORT’s Traffic Manager, Ben Cogburn spends most of his time in our parking lot. Just kidding, he’s our resident digital advertising guru. As a geology enthusiast, Ben graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a degree in Environmental Studies. So to say that he likes rocks is an understatement. You can find Ben hanging out with his rock collection, playing video games or hunting down new figurines to add to the impressive display he has on his desk.